The ioLight portable high resolution microscope, designed by Cambridge Industrial Design (CID), has been honoured at the prestigious European Product Design Awards.

Thanks to CID’s design experience and links to UK manufacturers, the product has been created, designed and manufactured in the Cambridge area, demonstrating the world-leading capacity that the city provides.

A winner in the Medical/Scientific Machinery category, the ioLight microscope combines high resolution with true portability. It has a resolution of better than 1μm, which produces beautiful pictures of animal and plant cells and displays them wirelessly on a tablet or mobile phone. Initially crowdfunded and now seeing rapidly increasing sales, ioLight has won endorsements from Bayer, Cambridge University and The Eden Project.

Andrew Monk from ioLight says “When we began we had a clear vision of the market need for a portable, high resolution microscope. Working with Cambridge Industrial Design has helped us turn our idea into reality, through a combination of its design knowledge, and understanding and experience of the end-to-end production process. Thanks to their support we’ve been able to launch a truly disruptive, UK product that is already attracting great attention around the world.”

“The ioLight project demonstrates the importance of innovative, ergonomic design to successful and disruptive products,” said Alex Jones, director, Cambridge Industrial Design. “Recognition from the European Design Awards shows the strength of our approach – and how Cambridge design and ideas can lead the world.”